Should Spain have nuclear weapons?

[Rumata]

CV should have them for another Reconquista.

[Aldaris]

I thought they weren´t but I read actually they could are indirectly under the NATO umbrella,(or not depending the circumstances), I believe that the case of Ceuta and Melilla is intentionally done in an ambiguous way.

In any case, the cases in which it is necessary to resort to the articles that allude to mutual aid are subject to voting, and we already know who is in charge of NATO.

And the NATO will do what the USA wants to be done or will support initiatives of others that indirectly interest it, so depending on the political moment, and its strategic interests, the diplomatic relations with each country, they could decide not to support Spain against Morocco.

That's not a realistic scenario, unless it's just some minor brawl the US has no intention in and can afford to let it slide in front of EU and Spain. But if it ever went any crazier, no way they can even afford to just watch it from afar and make the rest of the NATO do the same. They would lost what's left of their integrity right away and they wouldn't ever go all in like that for a facking Morocco which can offer them nothing against Spain and EU - their most prominent business partner.

[Westbrook]

Big facts here. Countries like Kuwait, UAE, etc are good examples of this. They get access to all the American/western military items they can afford, training, as well as defense agreements and thus don't need nuclear capability despite being right next to more powerful hostile nations past and present.

+1

To answer the question, hmm. Spain is part of NATO firstly and is covered by the nuclear powers who have signed this agreement, furthermore such a program carries little economic benefits, even for our corrupt government. You need to remember there are high economic and diplomatic costs to acquiring a nuclear weapon, and most nations do not significantly benefit from having nukes, and neither would Spain. However, even that said, obtaining a nuke does not guarantee defense, because you need a viable arsenal. For example, the US deals with this by using absurdly expensive things such as: air delivery capability, hardened silos, nuclear armed submarines, etc etc....

When you start building an obviously aggressive weapon like a nuke, this has the slight tendency of making your neighbors paranoid, which thus leads to conventional military spending being increased. And, the political fallout from development should absolutely not be undermined....potential for sanctions and just the general loss of participation in the international community can seriously harm your security situation as much as it might feasibly help. Also, a nuke does not essentially solve all issues of defense, in all possible regards it is a genocidal weapon of complete last resort. Furthermore, if your nation has a nuke and a shit army, while my country has a well funded army and no nukes, there is still possibility of me annexing territories of your nation that are of strategic importance. Also, there is a negative feeling amongst the population towards our nuclear power plants, which are getting older and are not very wanted by the population.

[Gredos]

now it is impossible, nobody would understand it, also Spain signed the non-proliferation treaty, that train has already passed. Maybe Franco was afraid of the Americans.


Why did Franco say 'NO' to the atomic bomb?

Spain could have been a nuclear power if it weren't for Franco, in the end, deciding not to.

"I have decided to postpone the development of this project." It was a warm morning in the spring of 1966 at the Palacio de El Pardo, outside Madrid. These words hit the military scientist Guillermo Velarde like a shot, to the point that he decided recklessly to vent his anger on the person who just said them: the dictator Francisco Franco.

That if everything was prepared, that if they were missing a historic opportunity, that if he was going to throw away his best years. All a spiel from Velarde that did not work. "Have you already unburdened yourself?" The dictator asked calmly and as a final point. With this conversation, years of calculations and technical developments, thousands and thousands of hours of work, and an obscene amount of pesetas had just been thrown away. "We would have been respected by many and feared by some", summarizes now, 60 years after that conversation at the top of Franco's power, Velarde himself to illustrate the nuclear Spain that could have been and never was. With "feared by some", Velarde refers, among others, to Morocco. And to that of "Spanish Gibraltar".

Watch our video: This is how Franco's atomic bomb was created

And it is that with these few words Franco put an end to the Spanish nuclear race. And he did it when everything was ready. The work of Velarde, the mastermind behind the entire project, had paid off and Spain had the capacity, the knowledge and the materials to produce its own bombs, not only atomic, but also thermonuclear. The country would have joined a select club: at that time only the United States, the Soviet Union, France and China had this technology at their disposal.

Velarde with the Soviet Nobel Prize in Physics Nikolai Basov
THE ART OF BEING IN PROFILE

Why did Franco say no? Out of cowardice, out of prudence, because of an economic calculation ... On the one hand, although since the 1940s he had given his go-ahead for Spain to develop its own nuclear project in an ultra-secret way, the dictator never wanted to pronounce definitively on it .

Neither yes, nor no, but quite the opposite. And it is that the art of putting oneself in profile has not been invented by the current leaders of the country. It is not the heritage of Mariano Rajoy. That style of governing, that of letting things settle or dry out with the miraculous intervention of the time factor, was Franco's personal hallmark.
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But above all, what Franco had was fear of the United States. Dread of the reprimands that the international community, led by Washington, could undertake against Spain the day after carrying out its first nuclear test in the Spanish Sahara. As he explained that morning at the Palacio de El Pardo to Velarde, Franco believed that the Americans would promote and impose strong economic sanctions. Those were the years of developmentalism, of international tourism in the Levante and the Costa del Sol, of the entry of foreign currency. Spain was beginning to emerge from the well after decades of misery and Franco did not want to risk all that just to see a nuclear mushroom made in Spain rise .

Read Who were the creators of the Spanish atomic bomb?

And the truth is that the dictator's fears were not very misguided. Despite all the secrecy, years of coded messages and folders labeled 'Top Secret', Americans knew it. In a secret CIA report dated August 23, 1974, but declassified only a few years ago, US intelligence services pointed directly at Spain. They warned of its nuclear potential and said it had to be closely watched "as a proliferative potential in the coming years."
AN ATTACK ON TWO BLOCKS FROM THE AMERICAN EMBASSY

Despite the monumental anger that Guillermo Velarde took that afternoon at the El Pardo Palace, Franco's decision, against all odds, was not going to mean the end of this story. It was December 13, 1973, and Velarde was working in his Nuclear Energy Board office when the phone rang. Lieutenant General Manuel Díaz-Alegría, chief of the High General Staff, wanted to see him. He commissioned him: he wanted me to summarize in two pages and for lay people in the matter at what stage the Spanish nuclear weapons program was and what remained to be done so that Spain had thermonuclear bombs.

Those two brief pages were used six days later. On December 19, the President of the Government, Luis Carrero Blanco, met with the US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinguer. It seems that the president of the Spanish government - the first of the dictatorship who was not Franco himself - bluffed himself on account of the Spanish ability to become a nuclear power. The day after the meeting, on December 20, 1973, at 9:27 a.m., Carrero Blanco flew out on Calle Claudio Coello in Madrid. He died in an attack perpetrated by ETA just two blocks from the United States embassy.

Velarde (second from left) with other scientists in a nuclear energy laboratory. Stock Image

A few days after the murder, Velarde received a new order. The new Prime Minister, Carlos Arias Navarro, had ordered that the nuclear project be resumed "on a preferential basis." The idea was to have a small arsenal of nuclear bombs before the decade was out. The scientist got back to work, excited that this time there was no going back. That he was going to become once and for all the father of nuclear Spain. But his dream did not come to pass either: with the death of Franco in 1975, the enthusiasm of the leaders of the Spanish Government faded, and with it the support of the administrations gradually disappeared.
A SLOW DEATH

The death of the project for Spain to have an atomic and thermonuclear bomb was slow, cruel. In the first months of 1980, Velarde met first with the Minister of Defense, General Manuel Gutiérrez Mellado, and later with the President of the Government Adolfo Suárez himself. The two were interested in the status of the nuclear weapons project and both made veiled promises to Velarde, with which they tried to suggest that he could build his bombs as soon as the pressure from the United States passed. Promises that were never kept.

Even Felipe González's socialists were slow to bury the issue. They left the project frozen in a drawer for several years, just in case. Until the end came, on October 13, 1987 . After two decades refusing to sign it, Spain finally ratified the Non-Proliferation Treaty, with which it promised not to develop any type of nuclear weapons. Thus the end was sealed.

Guillermo Velarde with King Juan Carlos, when there was still hope for the bomb

An end that for Velarde meant renouncing glory and ostracism. Although quite a celebrity in certain academic and scientific circles, and despite having rubbed shoulders and having developed a sincere friendship with some of the most important Nobel laureates of the 20th century, the general public does not know his name or his achievements.

In countries like France, China, the United States or Russia, their counterparts, the men who became fathers of their respective nuclear weapons programs, are treated with the honors of heads of state. Asked now about this difference in treatment, Velarde is brief in word. "This is Spain," he says.

https://www.vice.com/es/article/jpma...co-cientificos

[FinalFlash]

CV would probably drop one in North Africa.

[Faklon]

CV has kept one in his annals, she calls it hombre gordo.

[Cristiano viejo]

CV has kept one in his annals, she calls it hombre gordo.

Ottomans nuked Greece in past, look how Athens was after they sending the nuclear bomb there

[Diego Garcia]

now it is impossible, nobody would understand it, also Spain signed the non-proliferation treaty, that train has already passed. Maybe Franco was afraid of the Americans.


Why did Franco say 'NO' to the atomic bomb?

Spain could have been a nuclear power if it weren't for Franco, in the end, deciding not to.

"I have decided to postpone the development of this project." It was a warm morning in the spring of 1966 at the Palacio de El Pardo, outside Madrid. These words hit the military scientist Guillermo Velarde like a shot, to the point that he decided recklessly to vent his anger on the person who just said them: the dictator Francisco Franco.

That if everything was prepared, that if they were missing a historic opportunity, that if he was going to throw away his best years. All a spiel from Velarde that did not work. "Have you already unburdened yourself?" The dictator asked calmly and as a final point. With this conversation, years of calculations and technical developments, thousands and thousands of hours of work, and an obscene amount of pesetas had just been thrown away. "We would have been respected by many and feared by some", summarizes now, 60 years after that conversation at the top of Franco's power, Velarde himself to illustrate the nuclear Spain that could have been and never was. With "feared by some", Velarde refers, among others, to Morocco. And to that of "Spanish Gibraltar".

Watch our video: This is how Franco's atomic bomb was created

And it is that with these few words Franco put an end to the Spanish nuclear race. And he did it when everything was ready. The work of Velarde, the mastermind behind the entire project, had paid off and Spain had the capacity, the knowledge and the materials to produce its own bombs, not only atomic, but also thermonuclear. The country would have joined a select club: at that time only the United States, the Soviet Union, France and China had this technology at their disposal.

Velarde with the Soviet Nobel Prize in Physics Nikolai Basov
THE ART OF BEING IN PROFILE

Why did Franco say no? Out of cowardice, out of prudence, because of an economic calculation ... On the one hand, although since the 1940s he had given his go-ahead for Spain to develop its own nuclear project in an ultra-secret way, the dictator never wanted to pronounce definitively on it .

Neither yes, nor no, but quite the opposite. And it is that the art of putting oneself in profile has not been invented by the current leaders of the country. It is not the heritage of Mariano Rajoy. That style of governing, that of letting things settle or dry out with the miraculous intervention of the time factor, was Franco's personal hallmark.
Advertising

But above all, what Franco had was fear of the United States. Dread of the reprimands that the international community, led by Washington, could undertake against Spain the day after carrying out its first nuclear test in the Spanish Sahara. As he explained that morning at the Palacio de El Pardo to Velarde, Franco believed that the Americans would promote and impose strong economic sanctions. Those were the years of developmentalism, of international tourism in the Levante and the Costa del Sol, of the entry of foreign currency. Spain was beginning to emerge from the well after decades of misery and Franco did not want to risk all that just to see a nuclear mushroom made in Spain rise .

Read Who were the creators of the Spanish atomic bomb?

And the truth is that the dictator's fears were not very misguided. Despite all the secrecy, years of coded messages and folders labeled 'Top Secret', Americans knew it. In a secret CIA report dated August 23, 1974, but declassified only a few years ago, US intelligence services pointed directly at Spain. They warned of its nuclear potential and said it had to be closely watched "as a proliferative potential in the coming years."
AN ATTACK ON TWO BLOCKS FROM THE AMERICAN EMBASSY

Despite the monumental anger that Guillermo Velarde took that afternoon at the El Pardo Palace, Franco's decision, against all odds, was not going to mean the end of this story. It was December 13, 1973, and Velarde was working in his Nuclear Energy Board office when the phone rang. Lieutenant General Manuel Díaz-Alegría, chief of the High General Staff, wanted to see him. He commissioned him: he wanted me to summarize in two pages and for lay people in the matter at what stage the Spanish nuclear weapons program was and what remained to be done so that Spain had thermonuclear bombs.

Those two brief pages were used six days later. On December 19, the President of the Government, Luis Carrero Blanco, met with the US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinguer. It seems that the president of the Spanish government - the first of the dictatorship who was not Franco himself - bluffed himself on account of the Spanish ability to become a nuclear power. The day after the meeting, on December 20, 1973, at 9:27 a.m., Carrero Blanco flew out on Calle Claudio Coello in Madrid. He died in an attack perpetrated by ETA just two blocks from the United States embassy.

Velarde (second from left) with other scientists in a nuclear energy laboratory. Stock Image

A few days after the murder, Velarde received a new order. The new Prime Minister, Carlos Arias Navarro, had ordered that the nuclear project be resumed "on a preferential basis." The idea was to have a small arsenal of nuclear bombs before the decade was out. The scientist got back to work, excited that this time there was no going back. That he was going to become once and for all the father of nuclear Spain. But his dream did not come to pass either: with the death of Franco in 1975, the enthusiasm of the leaders of the Spanish Government faded, and with it the support of the administrations gradually disappeared.
A SLOW DEATH

The death of the project for Spain to have an atomic and thermonuclear bomb was slow, cruel. In the first months of 1980, Velarde met first with the Minister of Defense, General Manuel Gutiérrez Mellado, and later with the President of the Government Adolfo Suárez himself. The two were interested in the status of the nuclear weapons project and both made veiled promises to Velarde, with which they tried to suggest that he could build his bombs as soon as the pressure from the United States passed. Promises that were never kept.

Even Felipe González's socialists were slow to bury the issue. They left the project frozen in a drawer for several years, just in case. Until the end came, on October 13, 1987 . After two decades refusing to sign it, Spain finally ratified the Non-Proliferation Treaty, with which it promised not to develop any type of nuclear weapons. Thus the end was sealed.

Guillermo Velarde with King Juan Carlos, when there was still hope for the bomb

An end that for Velarde meant renouncing glory and ostracism. Although quite a celebrity in certain academic and scientific circles, and despite having rubbed shoulders and having developed a sincere friendship with some of the most important Nobel laureates of the 20th century, the general public does not know his name or his achievements.

In countries like France, China, the United States or Russia, their counterparts, the men who became fathers of their respective nuclear weapons programs, are treated with the honors of heads of state. Asked now about this difference in treatment, Velarde is brief in word. "This is Spain," he says.

https://www.vice.com/es/article/jpma...co-cientificos

Yo no sé si realmente Franco dijo "NO" a este proyecto en aquella época. Hoy en día, y desde hace ya más de 30 años, sólo se dicen mentiras sobre él. De modo, que tomo con pinzas cualquier cosa que se diga sobre el mismo. En principio, no me creo nada.

Por otro lado, se rumorea, que el Almirante Carrero Blanco --presidente de España en 1973-- fue objeto de un atentado terrorista para eliminarlo después de que estuviera decidido a seguir con tal proyecto nuclear. Casualmente el atentado ocurrió un día después de una entrevista que mantuvo con Kissinger, que entre otras cosas decía que una España fuerte no era deseable. Una vez eliminado Carrero Blanco y Franco 2 años después, ya el proyecto quedó sin fuelle alguno.

[SilverKnight]

Considering it was one of the biggest empires that ever existed on the face of the Earth. . . . YES

[Diego Garcia]

Maybe not in a very first stage, but Spain needs and urgently more nuclear plants to generate more energy, necessary for a re-industrialization. This Pandemic has shown us very clearly that a country can't base its economy on the Tourism.

At the very least a pair of dozens of nuclear plants more would be required in Spain.